[asphaltgambler]

Are you KIDDING?? ALL OVER HotWheels as a kid!! When they first hit my local five-and-dime in '68-69 - I thought I would die! I was 8-9 years old and the cars were $.99 each. I had a weekly allowance of $1 - but I also received $.50/day for lunch. I would skip lunch every other day and save the money for the Saturday trip into town where I would go straight to the Hotwheels section and buy at least 1 car and possibly two...................It became an obsession until my early teens.

My best friend at the time also had the same rediculous passion for Hotwheels. For any birthday or Christmas it was nothing BUT Hotwheels track, accessories, launchers, curved sections, mag wheel-shaped car carry totes, etc, etc. He and I would then get together at his house and we would combine our two ginormous collections into one and play all weekend long.

All told........ between me and my parents purchasing everything Hotwheels for 4 years straight - prolly had "invested' easily $600-700 ...............and that's late 60's-early 70's dollars. I had two very large steamer trunks my Mom had given me to keep all that stuff in. I was very particular about keeping the cars in order, clean, track wiped off.

Of course not too long after 18 I graduated, moved out and started life. When I was in my late 20's my parents built a new house to retire in. My mom called and asked if I still wanted "all that Hotwheel stuff" in her attic. So I go over and look into those trunks and discover they were time machines of my youth. Most all the stuff was just as I had packed away years ago but it still looked almost new. But what do I do with them now??

I thought about putting it in my attic or selling or..............................................Gi ving all of it to my sisters two young boys who at the time were about the same age as me. I called my sister and told her what I wanted to do and she could not believe I was going to give her kids all that stuff. She thought a lot of it was valuable because of the age and condition. I trucked it all over to her place and said to her kids......"here ya go ............enjoy!!"

Fast forward a couple months later. I go over there for a visit and see Hotwheels cars in the dirt, track pieces, gates and props out in the mud, all kinds of H/W 'carnage' everwhere I look. For an instant I go "WTF?" Then realize my nephews were having as much fun as I did then